Texans Can charter schools not making grade

Second chance, or second rate?Can Academy ads may be catchy, but the academics keep sliding

JENNIFER RADCLIFFE, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Published 6:30 am, Sunday, January 24, 2010

Former Dallas Cowboys and local celebrities take to the airwaves each year imploring Texans to donate their used vehicles to Texans Can, a charter school system that caters to dropouts, recovering drug users and teenage parents.

“Write off the car, not the kid,” urges the campaign, which generates about $8 million in annual revenuefor its 10 campuses in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Fort Worth.

While tugging at donors' heartstrings with success stories, the 4,400-student system is strapped with its own problems: declining enrollment, dismal academic results and a history of top-heavy spending.

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Three of its schools — including the Houston Main Street campus — are on the verge of being closed for repeatedly failing to meet minimal federal standards, and the former celebrity spokesman for the Dallas campuses has turned his back on the nonprofit, advising would-be donors to find other charities to support.

“The mission is good. The purpose is good. They just lost their way,” said Dale Hansen, a longtime sportscaster in Dallas who raised millions as the face of Dallas Can over 15 years.

Its top six executives earned a combined $880,000 in 2008, with founder Grant East topping the list with a salary of $236,000 as president emeritus, according to tax documents for that fiscal year. Grant has since retired, and is now drawing $50,000 a year, officials said. Current president Richard Marquez earns more than $190,000 a year. (KIPP charter schools co-founder Mike Feinberg, by comparison, earns a base salary of $115,000, plus a possible $35,000 in performance bonuses. KIPP schools are considered among the best in the nation when it comes to educating students from poor families.)

Teachers at the Main Street campus earned an average salary of $41,778 in 2009, about $10,000 less than the typical Houston ISD teacher.

Texans Can also spends $2.5 million a year on advertising, primarily to attract vehicle donations. Retired Dallas Cowboys who have appeared in TV commercials include defensive lineman Tony Casillas and backup quarterback Babe Laufenberg.

Can's leaders argue they serve the state's toughest population and that they are constantly working to improve their academics and finances. The leaders say it's unrealistic to think they'll ever meet state and federal standards with their population of at-risk students, some of whom enroll reading at a second- or third-grade level.

“It doesn't matter what it does to our ratings; we're here because every kid deserves a second chance,” said Cheryl Rios, who earns $120,000 a year as Texans Can's vice president for branding and communication.

Focusing on cars

The car donation program helps supplement the $32 million in state funding that the charter school system receives, Rios said.

Statewide, Can collects about 2,000 vehicles a year. Employees oversee the collection calls, tows, auctions and title transfers.

For Houston's two campuses, $950,000 was generated last year through vehicle donations. Of that, $275,000 was used to operate the program and about $675,000 was returned to the schools, Rios said. The revenue put a new roof on the Hobby campus and paid for rent, food and other items needed to keep students in school, officials said.

While Texans Can has grown to include about 40 employees in its vehicle donation program, academics continue to slide. According to state data, none of the 15 freshmen who enrolled at the Main Street campus in 2001-02 went on to earn a diploma from any school within six years.

“They've done a great disservice to the general public,” said Robert Sanborn, president of Children at Risk, a Houston advocacy group. “They're basically preying on the good intentions of Houstonians.”

Several other charter schools and traditional public schools that serve at-risk students produce better results — casting doubt on whether Texans Can is a good use of tax dollars, he said.

“People do want to support public education, but unfortunately this has become the wrong way to do it,” Sanborn said. “There's no way to maneuver the statistics around to say they've been a success.”

The schools were the brainchild of East, who served three years in prison for bank robbery in the 1960s. After time in the oil and computer industries, East established a nonprofit in 1976 to educate adult and juvenile prisoners in the Dallas area.

In 1985, he opened the first Can academy. Ten years later, he earned one of the state's first charters to operate it as a public, tax-funded school. The Can system has since enrolled 62,000 students and produced 9,800 graduates.

9 of 10 ‘unacceptable'

Now, nine of the 10 schools in the system are rated “academically unacceptable”by the Texas Education Agency. The Main Street campus failed to meet standards so frequently that law required the school to be restructured with a new principal and several new teachers last year.

Only 18 percent of students there passed the math portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in 2009. A TEA adviser clocked about 120 hours on the campus last year, and state officials are also advising district leaders on how to improve.

Educators at Houston Can's Main Street campus have created new tutoring programs to help the school's 510 students, most of whom are poor, pregnant or working to support families.

“If we weren't here, they'd probably just choose to call it quits,” said principal Joyce Phillips, who came to Houston Can this school year from the Aldine school district, where she was assistant principal at a night school for at-risk students.

“The scores are coming up,” she continued. “It may look like this school's below expectations, but you must look beyond that.”

Jamelle Roberson, 19, said he's never regretted leaving a high-dollar private school where he played basketball to attend Houston Can.

“This was a better path,” he said. “Here, everything is positive. Regardless of how you bring yourself in, you're going to leave positive.”

Cheryl Rimes, one of the new teachers brought in this year to help turn around the Houston Can campus, said she's impressed with the operation and hopes the school can make enough progress to avoid further sanctions.